


No Good People

by Areiton



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Angry Sex, Angst, Canon Het Relationship, Character Study, Cheating, F/M, Five Year Mission, M/M, Spock has a lot of issues, T'hy'la
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 04:54:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11051739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Time slipped past with the stars and for that finite eternity, he believed he could have everything.OrHow Spock Fell In Love With All The Wrong People.





	No Good People

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so fair warning. This has cheating. It is like, allllll cheating.   
> And there's het sex cuz Nyota.   
> So like. If that's not your thing? Maybe pass.   
> If not--enjoy. <3

The first time he kisses James Kirk, they are bleeding, he is still not sure how they survived the rebel prison camp, his leg is broken and Kirk is dehydrated. But Jim smiles, in a world cast red and gold, a desert that reminds Spock of Vulcan That Was, and they have achieved, once more, the impossible. 

He kisses him then, and James murmurs his name, presses it between them like a secret, bites gentle at his lip. Smiles, sweet and hopeful as Spock pulls him closer, impossibly closer. 

The kiss tastes like ashes and sorrow.

 

* * *

 

 

_ There are no good people, here. There are only the broken, trying to escape _ . 

Pike told him that, when he was in the academy. He remembered the curl of the other man’s smile, tired and bitter against his lips, the way Pike had moved, hard and angry, inside him. 

He remembered thinking, through blinding pleasure,  **illogical. You are good. We are** **_good._ ** **We are not broken.** Then Pike rolled his hips and Spock uttered a noise, choked, that made him laugh and lean down, fit their lips together in a kiss as gentle as their fucking wasn't and Spock forgot, for a time, the illogical anger of his lover.

He didn't understand then. 

But he understands now. 

 

* * *

 

 

“What happened, down there?” 

Nyota is tense and still at his bedside, worry in her wide dark eyes. Her fingers brush his and he can feel her worry, her fear, relief, the  _ love _ . 

He should pull away from it, should reclaim his hand. Should apologize for how he has hurt her. She doesn't even  _ know _ and that--that is the true wrong in this, and why he allows her touch, why he twists their fingers together. “Nothing of import,  _ ashayam.” _

“You gotta stop trying to kill yourself down there,” she says, gently, and he allows himself the barely there expression she knows is a smile. 

He can taste, still, the captain’s mouth, and feel his tongue, moving in his mouth, and the cool length of him, pressed close, even as he feels Nyota’s fingers squeezing his and Kirk watches him from the biobed next to him. 

 

* * *

 

 

He never planned to love James Kirk. He fought it, rebuffed the golden smiles and cheerful asides, distanced himself from the concern in the Captain’s eyes, hid in Nyota’s embrace. Refused his friendship and company and professional kinship, and never once did it slow the inevitable.

He never planned to love James Kirk. But he never planned to love anyone. 

_ Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, Spock.  _

It was another thing Pike had told him, while he was reading reports and Spock considered his upcoming classes, scheduling them and planning for his third year at the Academy. Pike’s fingers had drifted lazily through Spock’s hair, and he leaned into the touch and thought to himself,  **illogical. You are my plan. You are my life. You are my everything.**

Later, Pike had fallen asleep, hand still tangled in his hair, and Spock had slipped his PADD from him, and closed his eyes, drifting on the soft current of his lover’s mind until sleep claimed him. 

 

* * *

 

 

Kirk is released first, and that because he complains incessantly to the doctor. Spock watches his retreat, knows McCoy will take up the empty space in Kirk's bed, tonight, will watch him sleep and heal, and greet him with coffee in the morning. 

He knows, too, that it means nothing, that McCoy is a brother to Kirk. 

That even if he wanted to be, even if he were not Vulcan and experienced such illogical feelings, there was no right or reason to be jealous. 

It did nothing to kill the curl of fury in his gut. 

He is released two days later, and he makes his way, immediately, to Kirk. 

The Captain is sitting at his desk, lounging there, a picture of lazy insolence. His eyes find Spock, and there isn’t surprise or anger or any other emotion in his eyes. His face is perfectly blank and Spock’s fingers curl into fists. 

“Commander. What can I do for you?” 

Spock steps into the Captain’s quarters, and the door slides closed. “Computer, engage lock. Override, Alpha Sierra Sierra Bravo Five.” 

“Lock engaged.” 

Kirk is straightening, his expression still blank, but the tension is there, that hadn’t been, and Spock wants to revel in it. 

He doesn’t allow himself that. He crosses the room in two strides, catches him as he is rising, and drives him into the bulkhead, taking that cool, infuriating mouth in a kiss that is as rough and angry as any rebel alien army 

There is once, when Spock is sliding down his body, when Kirk moans, “No, Spock, we--” 

But then his mouth covers Kirk’s cock and the protest turns into a keen, and his hands tug Spock closer, and by the time they fall into bed, by the time he slides into James, and gasps his name, neither of them are thinking about pushing away. 

As he fucks James, slow and hard, and James claws at his chest, bites at his lip, they only pull each other closer. 

Closer. 

Until they share the same breath. Until James’ heartbeat pounds against Spock’s chest. Until they cannot  _ be _ closer, and still, James whines, and writhes, desperate to be closer. 

Spock comes inside him when Jim bites him, sinks his teeth into Spock’s skin and licks the blood away.  

 

* * *

 

 

He sleeps there, with Jim tangled in his arms.

When he wakes, an hour before alpha shift is due to start, Jim is sitting up, watching him sleep. 

“You have bruises on your neck,” Kirk says, after they stare for a moment. “Should probably use the dermal on it.” 

Spock catches the device neatly when the Captain lobs it at him, and nods once, before standing and retreating to his quarters through their shared bathroom.

 

* * *

 

 

He met Nyota when she was a student, bright eyed and eager, and so very careful of his cultural norms. It was refreshing, after so long on a planet that did not know, and cared even less. 

She was brilliant and lovely and relentless in her pursuit of him, even as she maintained her coursework and studies. 

He never intended to care for her. 

But then, he was very good at doing that which he did not intend. 

 

* * *

 

 

They do not speak of it. 

He steps on the bridge, after spending the night in his captain’s arms, and Nyota smiles from her station, her eyes a little heavy with concern, and he allows his fingers to brush against hers, a gentle reassuring caress as he takes his place at the science station. 

If Kirk notices or cares, he doesn’t say.

Spock allows himself to believe that this will not end badly.

 

* * *

 

 

She was a cadet. A brilliant mind, a talented linguist, a fierce debater. She laughed often, with her Orion roommate that seemed so different from her. They sat near his accustomed place in the dining hall. 

The Orion seemed to find some comfort in another alien presence. They were both alone in their place in Starfleet, the only Orion and Vulcan to serve, and while he did not speak to Gaila, he watched her with a kind of proprietary curiosity. 

And he watched Uhura, the way she listened to Gaila’s stories, the way she flicked her hair over her shoulder. The way her lips would thin and her eyes would narrow when she was annoyed. The way her lips moved to form words as she studied. 

By the time she was his student, she had become that rare thing--someone who made him curious and interested. 

By the time she asked him to have tea with her, he had lost a battle he never realized he was waging.  

He loved her without ever realizing he could love her, without ever thinking about not loving her. 

 

* * *

 

 

_ You don’t see what’s right in front of you, Spock.  _

Pike said that, when he was a cadet, and Pike was his advisor. 

He said it when Spock was given a place under his command, and blinked in startled surprise. 

He said it when he sat across from Spock, after he had been given a position of instructor at the Academy, wine warm and amused. 

He whispered it into Spock’s mouth, when he back Spock into his apartment door and Spock tugged him closer, licked into his mouth, tasted wine and chocolate there, and thought,  **_illogical. I see you. I have always seen you._ **

They made love, there, against his door, and as Pike opened him, pressed wet kisses to his chest, while he slid into Spock and groaned, his head dropping to Spock’s shoulder as he thrust, Spock’s eyes were wide and open and seeing. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Is everything ok with you and the Captain?” Nyota asks. 

Spock pulls his black starfleet issue undershirt on and gives her a mild look. “Do you have reason to think otherwise?” 

She shrugs one bare shoulder, a move that ripples down her sleek body, and he watches it with interest. She’s still damp with sweat, and her thighs glisten with his slick and her wet, and--

“He’s just been quiet. Short. He snapped at an ensign in engineering today and hasn’t been in the dining hall in a week. He only acts like that if he’s fighting with you or McCoy.” 

Spock does not tense. Does not react. Does not betray the fury that is illogical and not his to feel, at the mention of McCoy. 

“Perhaps the doctor has upset him.” 

She hums, sleepy now and he bends, kisses her gently before he leaves her rooms. 

He leaves her rooms and goes to his, and it itches, under his skin. Meditation does nothing to quiet the itch of her words. 

When he relents, and slips into Kirk’s rooms, they’re dark and James is lying in the bed, curled on his side, his back to Spock. 

“Go away, Spock,” he murmurs, and Spock hesitates. He is not wanted, but he was not locked out. 

Surely that means something. 

“You are upset with me,” Spock says. 

James laughs and it sounds wet, and bitter. “I don’t really get to be upset, do I? I knew the score when I kissed you.” 

Spock agrees with that sentiment, but maintains his silence. He does not remind Jim that it was he who initiated the kiss. He does not believe James would welcome rational thought at the moment. 

“I just--nothing. It’s nothing.” 

He tugs lightly on James’ shoulder, until the man relents and rolls to his back, and blue gleams in the darkness, as bright as a supernova. Spock crawls onto the bed, hovers over him, straddling his thighs. 

“You are hurt,” Spock says, softly. “I have hurt you.” 

Kirk shakes his head, and Spock leans down. 

James evades the kiss and Spock can feel Nyota on his skin, the taste of her in his mouth. He tenses and moves to stand. James makes a noise, broken and low and tugs him back. 

“Please stay,,” he begs and Spock nods against his throat. 

He stays. 

 

* * *

 

 

He avoids Sick Bay. The Doctor is perceptive in a way that makes Spock wary, withdrawn. 

And he is Kirk’s closest friend, the only one he has on this ship, aside from Spock himself. 

Sometimes, Spock wonders. If their friendship mirrors the one that is slowly developing between himself and the captain. 

He avoids Sick Bay and when McCoy comes to the bridge as the Enterprise comes into orbit above Ceti Alpha V, he keeps his eyes on the science board, and not the way McCoy stands close to Kirk. He does not allow himself to analyze the way Kirk leans into him, or the brush of McCoy’s hand against his shoulder. 

He does not allow himself a barely there smile as McCoy is left behind when the landing party is assembled. 

He does however, stare at the doctor in the transporter room. The Captain is near enough to touch, and Spock is at his side. McCoy stares, his expression troubled, from near the door. And Spock attempts to silence his thoughts. 

_ He is mine. He is mine.  _

Nyota is a warm voice in his ear, and Kirk is a solid presence at his side, and he allows himself a surge of possessive pleasure before the transporter takes him. 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Spock _ . 

Her mind is a white hot flash of pleasure and he nips at the soft skin of her thigh, just to hear the whimper she makes. 

Uhura is never weak. She is strong and beautiful and competent, the best communications officer in the fleet. She has fought Klingons and the expectations of Command and Kirk. She is beautiful and delicate and never weak. 

Except here. 

When Spock strips away her uniform and her pretty trinkets, when he releases all of her lovely hair and pours her over his bed. When he spreads her legs and licks her open, and her voice breaks, goes high and thin and pleading. 

He is gentle, teasing, until she is panting, sweaty, her hands twisting in his hair, and she is wet and sweet against his lips, her thighs trembling against his face as she rocks up against him. He slides two fingers and licks her clit, humming pleasure against her and she comes like that, gasping Klingon curses, tears in her eyes, shaking and squeezing around him. 

When he crawls up her pliant body, slides into her slick heat, when he murmurs, “ _ Ashayam.”  _

She smiles and rolls her hips, pulls him closer, licks herself from his mouth, drinks his whispers down as he shudders inside her. As he finishes in her. 

He falls asleep there, spent and lulled by her satisfaction and love. 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Do you ever wonder how we got here? _

Spock glanced at him. They were at a formal event, and Pike looked flawless in his dress grays, a polite smile on his face as he nodded to a passing ambassador. 

He was beautiful and the entire room was clamoring for his attention. He would captain the newest flagship--he would be the bright young darling for years. 

And Spock was his First. 

“I don’t know how we got here,” Pike breathes and gives him this wide eyed confused stare. 

Spock inclined his head, silent acknowledgement, even as he ached to say,  **_illogical. You earned this. We earned this. This belongs to us._ **

 

* * *

 

 

They are in a briefing, and Mister Scott is rambling about engineering. It is not unusual--Scott can wax poetic about the  _ Enterprise  _ for far longer than Spock wants to consider. What is unusual is that Kirk is not quieting him, not gently herding the meeting back to the tasks at hand. He watches for a moment, waiting for Kirk to take control, and when the Captain remains silent at his side, he quiets Scott and gives McCoy the floor. 

Kirk catches his eye, and Spock allows a question to show, his eyebrow to twitch upward. 

Shining blue eyes track down, and he can feel the gaze land, like a weight, on the bruise Nyota left, small and dark against his skin. 

Spock met his eyes as he looks back up, and Kirk’s expression changes. Turns angry somehow, and he shifts in his seat. Claims control of the meeting. 

When it is over, the tension is tight and the command crew scatter quickly, heads of departments almost running to escape. Kirk does not seem to notice or care. Nyota murmurs, low, “Good luck,” before brushing a quick finger over his and retreating with McCoy. 

“Captain,” Spock says, his voice even and cool.

“You were dismissed, Commander. I believe you have a brief to prepare for the Hellatie mission.” 

Spock hesitates and Kirk snaps, “That was not a suggestion, Mister.” 

“Aye, sir,” Spock says, his voice tight and cold. He stands and straightens his uniform. 

He makes it to the door before Kirk calls, lazy and mean, “I don’t care who you fuck, Commander, but I don’t want to see evidence of it on my bridge. Keep it in your pants or use a goddamn dermal.” 

Spock pauses, and then, “Aye, sir.” 

* * *

 

 

It does not get better. 

Kirk is by turns withdrawn and short tempered, and needy, shoving Spock into the bulkhead of his cabin, kissing him hard and fast and filthy. And sometimes, he is still, rare moments when he sits across from Spock, rolling a glass of whiskey in his hand as they play chess or Spock reads reports, and everything unsaid bubbles between them like a poison.  

Spock knows that he cannot ignore it. Knows that something  _ must _ change. 

He just cannot bring himself to change it. 

But beyond the walls of his cabin, the Captain is polite, cheerful, engaging the Commander and his crew. He has moments of quiet introspection, moments when he snaps for no reason--and two yeoman ask for reassignment before Spock speaks to Kirk about that and he attempts to rein in his temper. 

But he is withdrawn when Spock is with Uhura. 

They are in the rec room, and Spock is listening to her humming a tune, the words halting and sweet, when Kirk comes in. He is looking for something, and his gaze snags on Spock and Nyota for a moment, a stutter stop before slowly pushing past. 

When he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, he begins to turn away and Nyota calls his name. “Captain! Captain, join us.” 

His eyes flick to Spock for a moment so brief the Vulcan dismisses it as imagination, before he grins and makes his way to Spock’s side. 

It is, Spock thinks, watching the woman he is courting and the man he loves talking, Nyota laughing and strumming at Spock’s lyre, a strange and painful thing. 

And lovely. 

They are lovely. 

Kirk is flawless--there is only once, when Nyota laughs at Spock, leans forward and kisses him quick and fleeting, her grin infectious and touched with wine, that Kirk breaks. His expression, as he watches them, is desolate, achingly lonely. 

He excuses himself shortly after, retreats with excuses of paperwork and Starfleet orders awaiting him. 

Nyota watches him go, her expression fond and slightly concerned. She smiles at Spock, and says, “Do you think the Captain is lonely?” 

 

* * *

 

 

He is lonely. Spock can feel it, rolling off him in waves as he pins Kirk to his bed, and swallows his cock. There’s this noise he makes, when Spock first licks around his cock, when he takes it deep, lets the weight fill his mouth, shoves his gag reflex down until his nose presses into the dark gold curls at the base of Kirk’s dick, and that unique, smell--sweat and soap and a touch of apples--fills his sense, and he swallows, desperate for  _ more-- _ that’s when Kirk makes this  _ noise.  _ It’s something like a sob, this weak broken noise that catches in his throat and twists into a groan, and Spock considers that he might just be addicted to dragging that noise out of his captain. 

There are others, of course. The gasp he makes when Spock presses the first finger in. The groan when he rolls his hips up, chasing Spock’s mouth. The breathy little sigh he makes when Spock kisses him. The snarling shape of his name when he has teased and tortured and Kirk’s patience is spent. 

There is his name, weightless and almost unheard, pressed into the bed and his throat, bitten into his arm when Spock fills him, pushes deep and fucks him, slow and hard, fast and rough, gentle and shallow. 

When Spock is buried deep inside him, when he is twisted around him, when they are quiet and Spock’s fingers spread tentative over James’ face, when James tilts his head, begging wordlessly for it. 

Then, the loneliness in James fades, and Spock cannot understand how this could possibly be wrong. 

 

* * *

 

 

_ It doesn’t change anything. Spock. Do you understand? This--it’s not the same.  _

Her name is Una. She is tall and severe, with dark hair and pale eyes and manner so reserved, he wonders if she spent time on Vulcan. 

No, he learns, she is Ilyerian, a survivor, coldly logical and until very recently, she was known simply as Number One, Pike’s first officer. 

She is Captain now, of the  _ Farragut,  _ and Spock is meeting her for the first time. Pike lingers between them and there is something in his eyes Spock does not understand, until. 

“Spock, I’d like you to meet Captain Una. My wife.” 

He does not know, what he says or how he eventually leaves, how he does not turn accusing eyes on his captain,  his lover. 

He listens to the comms dispassionately. To Pike’s insistence that this changed nothing. That she changed nothing. He sat on his meditation mat and closed his eyes.  **_Illogical. She changes everything. She changes us._ **

 

* * *

 

 

Space is wide and empty and time stretches there. It’s a phenomenon he had experienced before--the way it seemed elastic, a minute, an hour, a day stretching into eons, when they were in danger. 

A minute, an hour, a day, passing in the space of a heartbeat, when he allows himself to linger in the quiet space. In the comfort of the bridge when all is well, and the curl of Nyota's bed, when she is sleeping.

In the empty v of James’ legs, when he was drinking, Spock draped against him as they read reports together. 

Work efficiency dropped to almost seventy three percent, but he accepted that loss, since Kirk’s overall efficiency rating always showed a three to five percent increase the days following those lazy nights. 

And because there was pleasure, illogical but undeniable, in his presence. 

Time slipped past with the stars and for that finite eternity, he believed he could have everything. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Have you seen the Captain?”

Spock pauses, and tilts his head in question. “Not since we concluded alpha shift.”

Lt Sulu makes a face. “Tell him he owes me twenty credits--Paval folded like a wet napkin.” 

Spock watches the pilot walking away, Chekov tucked into his side, a wide smile on his face. 

He dismisses it, and the strange unease that accompanies it. 

Except. It happens again, a few days later, while he is in the rec room, looking for Nyota and Mister Scott runs up. “Give Jim this PADD, aye? It’s the paper on transwarp physiology and the one about using wormholes for travel.” 

Spock almost dropped it, so perturbed by the idea of wormhole travel, but Scott has already moved on, hurrying away. 

When he hands the PADD to James, later, it earns him a smile. 

“Why does the crew assume I will see you, when we are not on duty?” Spock, asks, tugging Kirk into his chest. 

“I dunno, Spock. Maybe they noticed we aren’t trying to kill each other anymore.”

He would put it down as that, simple and easy, except--

The only person besides James who the crew treats as an extension of himself is Nyota. 

He wonders, what they see that he has attempted to conceal. 

He wonders if Nyota will see it as well. 

He wonders if James already has, and if he choses to ignore it. 

 

* * *

 

 

“We have shore leave coming up.” 

The words are spoken gently, hopefully. 

They are four years into their five year mission, and he has never taken shore leave that Kirk did not insist on, has never spent it with anyone but Kirk. 

She stopped asking for him to, years before, even before the five year mission began. 

“I’d like to go back to the Colony, with you.” 

“Nyota,” he begins, and she lifts a hand. 

“I know--I know you’ve always wanted to go slow. That the idea of bonding after losing your mother was distasteful to you. But we’ve been doing this for six years. The mission ends soon.” 

There is something in her words, something he recognizes with ease. 

“I always share you with the crew, with Starfleet, and Kirk,” she says, and he does not flinch. “But I want this time to be ours. 

He thinks of the moment the night before, when Kirk lay on his back and talked about shore leave, about spending it together on the empty ship, about dinners on Starbase 53, about balancing meetings with hiding in bed. 

The presumption that Nyota would use the shore leave to attend a xenolinguistics conference, or vacation with Chapel was there, an unspoken thing between them. 

“Spock,” Nyota says, and shifts onto her knees, her eyes wide and hurt and just a little bit angry. “This matters to me. I need--I would like you to consider it.” 

H nods, and she gives him a small smile that doesn’t quite dispel the unease in his gut. 

 

* * *

 

 

He stands at attention, hands clasped at his back, his eyes trained on the wall above Kirk’s head. 

“The Colony? Do we have time to go there? Shore leave is only five days.” Kirk says, absently. “Why? You’ve never wanted to take leave.” 

“I wish to accompany Lt Uhura to the Colony.” 

Kirk freezes and Spock sees every emotion that flickers in his eyes--surprise and grief and fury and hurt, hurt that cuts at him. He wants, desperately, to ease that hurt. To erase it completely. “I see,” he says, quietly. 

_ Ask me to stay, _ Spock thinks and Kirk straightens behind his desk, his face closed down. “Thank you for informing me of your plans. We will anticipate your return at the end of your leave.”

“Jim,” Spock says, and Jim’s expression goes brittle, his posture even stiffer. “Is there anything else, Mister?” 

Spock understands the dismissal, understands it is his Captain and not his lover who is speaking and he inclines his head. “No, sir.” 

He feels Kirk’s eyes on him until the door slides closed behind him. 

* * *

 

 

“Are you happy, Spock?” 

He watches her over the remains of their meal, and weighs the question. 

“With me,” she adds. “Are you happy with me.” 

“Yes,” he says, “As happy as I am capable of being.” 

She doesn’t point out that she knows damn well he can feel, that he is often happy in his work, in his position.

“Will you marry me?” She asks, and it startles him. This question has weight, gravity, is a ritual for humans, as much as taking a bondmate is for Vulcans. To hear it here, in such a blunt and matter of fact way--

“Nyota,” he murmurs. 

“We’re happy,” she says. “And we’re good together. If we’re married, Starfleet will keep us together--and we will continue to be good together. When this mission ends, they won’t separate us.” 

“You have considered this,” he says, steepling his fingers. 

Her head tilts, and her eyes narrow, “You haven’t.” 

“I have not considered leaving the  _ Enterprise,”  _ he admits. For a moment, he considered how a future would spin out, if he left  _ Enterprise.  _

If he took command of a science vessel, Uhura at his side. A crew of brilliant, like minded scientists, and the leisure to chase his own interests, the chance to further the scientific knowledge of the Federation. 

No more patrolling the increasingly hostile Neutral Zone or diplomatic missions, no more run ins with angry Klingons and skirmishes with the Romulans. No more strangely hostile new planets, trying its best to kill them. 

No more red alerts in middle of the night and endless shifts spent tense and ready for battle. 

No more James Kirk, smiling at him and kissing him, standing shoulder to shoulder while they beam into a planet no one has ever walked on. 

The idea is so alien and anathema he blinks and says, simply. “I have no desire to change my position.” 

She watches him, and finally, nods. “Then we will stay on the  _ Enterprise _ .” 

“You would limit your career for me?” 

“I’m Chief Communications Officer of the USS  _ Enterprise,”  _ Nyota says, tartly. “It’s not a small position.” 

Spock blinks and she sighs, softening. “Will you consider my request? I understand you do not wish to bond, yet. I accept that.” 

“Yes,” he says, softly, before she can continue to speak, and he feels himself flush when her mouth falls open, her eyes widen. “Yes, Nyota, I will marry you.” 

* * *

 

 

He does not tell Kirk. 

Later, when pressed, he will not be able to provide a logical reason for not telling Kirk. Both as a commanding officer and as a friend, he should have. 

But he does not, and they return to the  _ Enterprise,  _ as though nothing has changed, as though they will not marry at the conclusion of this five year mission. 

Nyota is a private person and for a time, it remains between them, spoken of only in knowing glances and a secret smile that she wears even on the bridge. 

Nothing changes. Nothing will, now. He will marry her and they will continue, as they have now for years. 

“Mister Spock, if I could have a word with you,” Kirk says and it does not raise his concern. It is only in the turbolift, when Kirk stands stiff and distant, that Spock realizes something is amiss. 

Kirk waits until they are in a conference room, the door sliding shut behind them, the table between them a weak shield. 

“Heard an interesting rumor about what you did on New Vulcan.” Kirk says, casually and Spock understands, abruptly. 

Kirk is watching him, his eyes bright and hurt and when did that happen? When did he become accustomed to seeing pain in this man whom he loves. 

When did he fall in love with him? 

“Tell me it’s not true,” Kirk says. “Tell me you aren’t marrying her.”

“James,” he starts, and then falters, because he can’t continue, can’t lie and cannot bring himself to admit the truth. 

For a moment, a brief eternity, he had convinced himself he could have it all. That he could keep this--Kirk and Nyota, and live in this inbetween. 

“You did,” Kirk breathes, stumbling back a step and Spock takes a half step forward, reaching for him. “You’re  _ marrying _ her, even though--Jesus, Spock, are you going to even  _ tell _ her, that we’ve been fucking for three years? Are you going to tell her about this fucking thing in my head that you won’t even talk to me about? Are you going to marry her and have little Vulcan babies and keep me in the background, good enough to fuck, but not to marry. Not to  _ be with. _ ” 

“You know that is not true,” Spock snaps, furious suddenly. 

“I don’t know shit,” Kirk spits. “Except that you changed our plans, and you came back engaged, and fucked me, but didn’t even have the courage to tell me you were marrying her.” He slumps, suddenly, and, “Did you think of me, at all?” 

“I think of you always,” he answers, simple truth. 

“And her?” Kirk demands, “When do you think of her? When do you wake up and realize you can’t  _ do  _ this to us?” 

Spock is silent, still. Tense with the need to explain, words bottled up and choking him. 

“If you marry her, Spock, we’re done. You can’t fuck me and go back to her forever.” 

There’s a noise, a quiet thing that cuts deep, and Kirk’s eyes go wide, his face pale. 

Spock knows. He knows, even before he turns. 

He knows, and he doesn’t want to face it. For a moment, they are frozen, an endless heartbeat. 

Then he turns and sees her, her face lovely and broken and furious. 

She leaves, without a word. 

Kirk follows her. 

* * *

 

 

_ This is different. Do you understand? This is right.  _

The words are earnest, spoken in a voice raspy from yelling, and he wants. 

He wants. 

He does not know what he wants or why, only that he aches with it, this anxious thing that moves under his skin, pushes at him, makes him anxious to  _ take _ . Pike is watching him, blue eyes exhausted. “She isn’t--this is different.” 

“She is your wife,” Spock says. 

He has said that twenty three times, since Pike forced his way into Spock’s small apartment, a place he has been so often, where he has fucked Spock, where memories of them, togehter, are pressed into every surface. 

He wants to leave here. 

“She is. But Spock, she lives in space. You are here, with me.” 

“She was your First.” 

“Was.” Pike repeats, “You are now. Only you.” 

“This is wrong,” Spock says, and Pike moves, crosses into his space, kisses him, rough and hard. 

It moves fast then. They are kissing and he is desperate for it, desperate for Pike’s mouth, sucks at his tongue, drops to his knees and mouths, hungry, at his cock. Whines when Pike pushes him on his back and teases him open. He digs his nails in, sucks a bruise into Pike’s skin, bites hard at his nipple and if it bothers the older man, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t stop it. He smiles into Spock’s mouth as he pushes in and Spock arches up, keening in his throat, his slick messy and wet between them. “This is different. Do you understand? This is right.” 

Spock comes first, while Pike thrusts into him and presses gentle kisses into his mouth, and thinks,  **_illogical. This is wrong. We are wrong._ **

 

* * *

 

 

The entire crew knows there is something wrong. He exists in a bubble of quiet, of quickly averted eyes and angry stares. 

Nyota refuses to speak to him. She removes herself from alpha shift for three days before Kirk speaks to hsr and Spock wishes he knew what was said there. He wishes he could go back, to the moment before he told Kirk he was taking shore leave, to the moment it began to unravel. 

He wants to go back to the time when this was good and he believed he could keep this. 

She returns to alpha shift, sits straight and competent at her station, her voice cool and crisp as she relays everything she hears, as her hands move across her board, as the shift spins out. 

He wants to speak to her. Wants to speak to Kirk. But the warning look from the center seat keeps him in his place, his mouth closed up on all the questions he wants to ask. 

After their shift, Nyota doesn’t try to avoid him. She marches, her long pony tail swinging like a pendulum, leading him from the bridge to her quiet quarters, and he has a moment of distress, of wishing they could do this anywhere else. 

The conference room or his science labs, the communications labs, the transporter room, any of a thousand places on the ship, any place that is not  _ here _ where they have been so happy. 

For a moment, he is years younger, and a galaxy away, in a tiny apartment in San Francisco, and Pike is there. 

“How long,” Uhura asks, unzipping her dress. It puddles at her feet, around her boots and she sits on her bed, where he has fucked her so many times, where he has lain in her arms, and drifted, happy. 

He does not want to see this tarnished. 

“Two years, eleven months and twenty eight days.”

Something like shock crosses her face, before it’s wiped away by bitterness. “Is that why you are meeting with him in two days? To celebrate your anniversary?” The words are mocking and hurt, and it occurs to him that Jim probably did have just that intention when he requested a meeting with Spock after alpha shift in two days time. 

Tricky human. 

“Would you ever have told me? Or would you have married me and let me continue being a fool, a fucking laughing stock in the ‘fleet.”

“No one knows,” Spock objects. 

“ _ Everyone knows,”  _ Uhura screams, so sudden that it startles him. “The entire crew knows he loves you, and that you---Christ, Spock. How could you? If you didn’t want me, just fucking say that.” 

“I do want you,” he says, puzzled. Because this is something he is very sure of. He does not understand how she could doubt that. 

Doubt him. 

Nyota is staring at him, her eyes wide and full of something he’s never seen in her before. 

“You poor bastard,” she whispers. “You don’t even--Spock. You had to know I would never tolerate this. That I don’t want to  _ share _ you, not with Jim.”

Is that why? Why he never told her? 

“This,” he says, instead of considering that, “is different. We are different.” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“Nyota--”

She flinches and pulls away. “I think you should go. I need--I need some time, to figure out what I want.” 

Spock stares at her, for a long moment, and her voice is tired. “Just go, Spock.” 

 

* * *

 

 

“Just go, Spock,” Kirk snarls, and Spock arches an eyebrow. The captain has been punching the same bag for forty seven minutes, and he ran for an hour before this. 

He’s dripping sweat, his red exercise pants clinging to muscular legs and the round swell of his ass that Spock has bitten. 

His chest is wet and gleaming and he looks obscenely attractive and Spock wants, badly, to tear the pants from him and fuck into him against the wall, stretch him open with fingers and tongue while he writhed and spat curses and anyone could see. 

“Negative,” Spock says, calmly, ignoring the urge to claim him. “You are avoiding me.” 

“Then take the fucking hint,” Kirk snaps. 

Spock moves as Kirk turns away, intercepts him. Kirk lashes out, slamming into Spock. There’s no skill, no sense behind it, all rage and flailing limbs that he could easily avoid. 

The bruise on Kirk’s face, small and high against his cheek, is glaring and he stares at it as Kirk hits him, as he takes the furious rage, the flash of  _ hurt _ , of  _ why _ , of  _ love you want you hate you _ . Every touch slamming all of Kirk’s fury and hurt into him, and oh, that. 

That is what breaks him, what drives him, gasping, to his knees, what leaves him shaking when McCoy’s sharp voice cuts through the room, when the doctor pulls Kirk back, away from Spock. 

“Stay away from me,” Kirk gasps, burying the words in the doctor’s shoulder as he cradles the younger man close, and Spock feels the familiar nauseating pulse of jealous rage, before he remembers he is not allowed to feel that. Not now. 

Not here. 

“Stay away from me.” 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Stay away from both of us. _

Pike was staring at him, and blue eyes were bright and smiling and somehow, surprised as Spock stood in his office, the desk between them a professional buffer. He smoothed his professor blacks, and watched Pike track the movement. 

Last night, Nyota Uhura had kissed him, her lips gentle and her hands cool as she held him like he was fragile and precious, and whispered,  _ I’m sorry, Spock. I’m so sorry.  _

It was, he thought, illogical. He wanted to tell her that. 

Should have told her. 

“Spock, be reasonable.” 

“Captain,” Spock said, his voice edging sharp and cold. “The relationship between us is inappropriate and wrong. Your wife--”

“No, I told you. It doesn’t matter. We’re  _ different.”  _

The worst part was--he wanted them to be. Wanted to keep Nyota in his bed, warm and gentle, and Pike, pressed into his back, fierce and hard and biting curses into his skin. 

And for a time, he had allowed himself to believe he could. Pike had him, and the beautiful captain who smiled, cool and logical, at his side. 

Except. 

She had not sought him out. They were walking in opposite directions, and she had smiled at him, the cold impersonal smile she had given him when they met, and said, “Commander Spock. Your personal association with my husband--it ends now.” 

“Captain?” Spock said, startled. 

“Stay away from him,” she answered, stepping back. “Stay away from both of us.” 

As she walked away, he stared and for once, he did not think at all. 

 

* * *

 

 

The chime of his door draws him from the PADD he is frowning at, and he shifts. “Come,” he calls. 

Nyota is in black pants that cling to her long legs, a small top that flows and shifts and makes her appear almost naked in the way it clings. 

For a moment, he believes she is here with a smile and a kiss, to welcome him back to her bed. 

Then she pushes a bag across his desk, scattering his neatly ordered stacks of PADDs and his thoughts and says, “Here. You left some of your stuff in my quarters.” 

He doesn’t look in the bag. Doesn’t need to look to know that it will contain a hardcopy of  _ Alice in Wonderland _ and an incense burner, a sweater his mother knit him that Nyota loved to wear when reading, a few changes of clothes, and her necklace. 

All the precious bits of himself that he had trusted to her care, casually tossed back  into his lap. 

“Nyota,” he says and she sighs. 

“I understand that you love him, and that you never meant to. He did--he did tell me, that neither of you planned this. But Spock--three  _ years. _ At some point, you  _ had _ to know what you were doing was wrong.” 

“I could not chose between you.”

Her smile turns sad, heartbreakingly so. “But you did.” 

His breath catches, and he holds himself utterly still. 

“When you chose to kiss him, and love him, fuck him. When you chose the  _ Enterprise _ over a career with me. You chose him.” Her head tilts. “Is he why you never melded with me? Why you do not want to bond?” 

He is silent and something very sad flickers in her eyes. 

“You love me, Spock. I know that. I am  _ ashayam.  _ But Jim,” she shakes her head. “Jim is  _ t’hy’la.  _ I can't compete with that. I shouldn't even have to try.”

When she kisses him, it tastes like ash and goodbye and regret. 

He stands where she left him, for a very long time, as the ship glides through the black. 

 

* * *

 

 

It is a strange thing, to be separate. He was used to it, as a child on Vulcan, content to be alone with his work and his books, with only I’Chaya for company, the quiet home of his familial bonds to center him. 

But the Academy taught him the value of companionship, Pike taught it to him with every hard kiss and languid touch. Nyota and Kirk have been so much a part of his life, that the distance in them both, now, is painful. 

It feels like a punishment, and he cannot bring himself to be angry. 

He has earned their anger, their distance, this painful punishment that stings under his skin and makes him ache to reach for them. 

He is surprised, and hopeful, when Nyota does not transfer from the  _ Enterprise, _ but he does not ask about it, and Kirk does not offer any information. She is, as ever, a perfect officer, but she is distant, aloof. 

Spock finds that more than her warm bed and cool kisses, more than the shine in her eyes when he moved in her and the clutch of her hands in his hair, he misses her company. The sweet press of her against his side when she read and mumbled in half a dozen languages, and the bright peal of her laughter when she danced with Scotty and he watched, the sharp logic to her arguments when he disagreed with her. 

He misses, not only the lover, but the friend.

He comms her, after a particularly grueling mission where Nyota’s skills and unrivaled ability to parse out the language of bodies and tongue and politics brought yet another planet into the fold of the Federation. He comms her because he no longer has right to go to her, and because he can no longer hold his tongue. 

_ I am sorry. _

For an hour, he waits for a response. For a day. A week. Two. 

It is when he is lying in Sickbay, yet another poorly executed away mission resulting in injuries so ridiculous he has to wonder  _ how _ to explain this to Starfleet. 

Again. 

His PADD chimes, low and McCoy gives him a scowly eyebrow that Spock primly ignores as he calls up the message. 

It is from Nyota. 

_ I am too.  _

His eyes close, and for the first time in what feels like months, he breathes. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Did we break this?” 

Spock shifts, and Kirk’s hips kick up, a low groan in his throat. Spock knows what he’s asking, what he wants to be reassured of, but he can’t. Cannot bring himself to lie and cannot bring himself to speak the truth. He reaches for his psi points, and Kirk whines, his head tilting, instinctively giving what Spock demands. 

His mind opens like a dream, lazily enticing, illogically beautiful, impossible to understand. And he is drawn, irresistible to the bond that pulses weak and familiar, a half formed thing he never meant to create and has never been able to resist. 

It gleams golden and black, something rotten and  _ wrong  _ in it, distrust that he put there.  

“Did we break this?” 

Spock holds him close as Kirk rolls his hips, tears slippery under his fingers, and he tries to believe that he did not. 

That he can keep this, if nothing else. 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Are you happy? You look happy.  _

Pike smiles and it's bitter, this sad and broken thing. 

Behind him, the Memorial wall from the Battle of Vulcan stretched, long and somber and lovely.  Kirk and Nyota are moving away from him, but they hesitate as he does, pausing to give Pike reserved smiles. 

He is still in a hoverchair, his eyes rimmed red and Spock understands. 

Captain Una of the USS  _ Farragut.  _

“May I have a moment?” Spock asks, and Kirk nods, stepping away as Nyota runs a quick finger over his palm before following him. 

“You look happy, Spock,” Pike says.

His planet is gone. His mother is dead. His bondmate is among the missing and a comm from a brother he has not spoken to in a decade sits on his PADD. 

But between Kirk and Nyota, sometimes he feels happy. Sometimes it loss doesn't clench in his gut. 

He wants to say,  _ I am _ . And  _ thank you.  _ And  _ I am sorry.  _ Wants to whisper  _ I love you _ and  _ mine.  _

Instead, he inclines his head and says simply, “I believe I am.” 

 

* * *

 

 

It takes time. More time than he thought possible. Months before Kirk reaches for him, and longer before he doesn't flinch when Spock reaches back. 

The first time he kisses Spock in front of the crew, Spock is shaking, terrified, furious. Krik is shining golden, impossibly alive, his shirt torn and dirty. 

The kiss tastes like starlight and hope.

There are whispers, but less, after that. They quiet more each time Kirk smiles and reaches for Spock on the bridge and in the rec room, over a dinner that McCoy scowls over. 

Sometimes, Spock will see Nyota watching them, sadly. 

She asks for a transfer, and Kirk speaks to her. He never does tell Spock what is said, but she stays, after that. 

Sometimes, he watches Kirk and wonders where he goes, when he is not in Spock’s arms. 

Sometimes he feels the same fear in James. 

But the bond is there, quiet and weak. 

And Spock allows himself to believe that he can keep this. And that _ this  _ is enough. 

When Kirk lies sleeping in his arms, hands twisted in Spock’s robes, when he sighs  _ Spock _ and curls closer--he allows that to be true.

This is enough. 


End file.
